#18 in TeenFic
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❝Don't,❞ he pleaded softly, offering her a tiny smile, ❝please don't make me a promise you will never be able to keep.❞ He released a quiet but deep breath, leaning forward even more, tilting his body towards her, until thei...
NICK stepped closer, attempting to approach Bree once again now that she seemed a little calmer than she'd been before.
He needed to know if she was still trembling; he needed to know why. So he placed a palm on her shoulder, felt the slight tremors, and took one more step closer to her.
"Bree, you're shaking," he pointed out, keeping the alarm out of his voice. "What's going on?"
She shook her head, shutting her eyes and breathing in deeply, causing Nick to peek at the stretch of skin her unbuttoned collar revealed. No, she didn't appear to be calimg down; her chest seemed to still be rising and falling unnaturally fast.
"Come on," he urged, gently shaking her arm he was holding, attempting to let go of the residual anger still simmering inside him for that guy, and working on softening his demeanour, on levelling his tone, so that Bree would feel a little more secure. It had just occurred to him she'd probably never witnessed a confrontation like that before. It had just occurred to Nick that she'd probably been scared out of her wits. And he hated himself for dragging her into all the misery he carried around himself. He didn't want his -- his darkness, or bad karma, or whatever the hell it was that was so messed up about him -- to begin effecting her too.
That was the last thing Nick wanted.
He lifted his hand, hesitated, and then dropped it back down to his side. He couldn't touch her, couldn't comfort her, couldn't just wrap her up in an embrace. He shouldn't be wanting to take care of her in the first place. Nick simply shouldn't want. For anything. Noattachments, he reminded himself, thiswasalltemporary.
"Bree," he murmured in a much softer tone, sounding... tender somehow. And it left a weird feeling inside of him; foreign, and unwanted, and downright uncomfortable. Nick didn't really like the feeling. It just wasn't him. "Bree, are you feeling scared?"
Bree's eyes slowly fluttered open, only to lock onto his own ones. And Nick didn't appreciate this feeling too -- the one that just zoomed down his chest and all the way to his gut, all at the mere colliding of their gazes.
"Not anymore," she replied eventually, her voice quiet.
Notanymore, the words echoed in Nick's head. He felt a clench in his chest at the underlying meaning. "But you were?" He asked, knowing what the answer was. "Back in there?"
Bree raised her hand, using it to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear. She pressed her mouth together, seeming to debate with herself for a while, and then offered a small nod.
